This invention deals generally with spray painting and more specifically with an apparatus that permits safely spray painting small surfaces in an unenclosed area.
Most of us assume that professional paint spraying is always done within an enclosed environment, in enclosures usually referred to as paint booths or paint rooms. While that is usually the case, there are situations in which small areas of large objects are spray painted in the open environment. For example, bumpers of automobiles are frequently painted out in the open simply because the other options of moving the automobile into a large enclosure specifically designed for spray painting or removing the bumper so it could be put into a smaller paint booth would be time consuming and expensive. If the painting is done carefully, car bumpers can be spray painted wherever they are located, for instance, on a car sales lot.
The important aspect of such a job is the “done carefully” aspect. There is always stray paint, called “overspray”, generated by a spray painting operation, and the slightest breeze can disperse such overspray into the environment and onto nearby objects such as other vehicles. Moreover, the spray painting equipment itself creates air movement that may disperse paint beyond the specific object being painted. Such errant paint can be very costly to remove.
Some portable spray rooms have been available that are constructed of metal tubing and plastic sheet, but even the simplest of such devices require significant time to assemble and disassemble, so that they also are uneconomical for work on a single object such as one automobile bumper.
It would be very beneficial to have available a portable apparatus that required only simple and rapid set up and required that the vehicle only be moved a short distance from other vehicles in order to have small areas on the vehicle painted.